Pivotal time now for Saudi Arabia PIF with direction of Newcastle United ownership | OneFootball

Very interesting now to see what happens with Saudi Arabia PIF and Newcastle United.

Wednesday saw news breaking that Amanda Staveley and her husband are leaving NUFC.

George Caulkin reporting for The Athletic – 10 July 2024:

‘Newcastle United co-owners Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi are to leave the club after three years at St James’ Park.’

‘After being stripped back under Ashley, Newcastle now have a more rounded corporate structure, with Darren Eales in place as chief executive and Paul Mitchell recently replacing Dan Ashworth as sporting director. All parties have reluctantly concluded that the time is right for Staveley and Ghodoussi to step back and sell their shareholding and for the club to move on.‘

No surprise at all really.

Amanda Staveley and her husband had made a kind of business that revolved around introducing people/businesses to each other and playing a supporting role in helping certain deals happen, then in recent years with Newcastle United they hit the jackpot.

Amanda Staveley’s persistence and willingness to put herself out as the front for the ‘consortium’, saw the Newcastle United takeover happen at last, with Saudi Arabia PIF and the Reuben family coming together to finance the deal.

She took a lot of flak in/from the media but for Newcastle United fans, the end of Mike Ashley was absolutely massive, just remember those spontaneous scenes outside St James’ Park on 7 October 2024.

You would have to be pretty naive to have ever thought that Amanda Staveley had some kind of say in the major decision-making at Newcastle United, considering she was working for/alongside Saudi Arabia PIF and the Reuben family. That is the Reuben family who is one of the richest families in the UK, if not THE richest, the most recent Sunday Times rich list in May 2024, estimated their family fortune at £25billion.

The storyline was that the ‘consortium’ was Saudi Arabia PIF with 80 percent ownership, 10 percent Reuben family, and 10 percent Amanda Staveley.

However, I don’t think anybody seriously believed that facade, with Amanda Staveley surely, in my opinion anyway, having been given her 10 percent share by the Saudis and/or Reubens as her reward for publicly fronting the takeover and working so hard to make it happen.

Amanda Staveley and her husband also got a very well-paid management contract to work at and help run the club post-takeover.

That facade of a shareholder equal to the Reuben family then swiftly fading when post-takeover it was always going to be necessary to pump cash into this ailing football club/business that had suffered a decade and a half of Mike Ashley,

As the Saudi Arabia PIF and Reuben family pumped those extra funds in pro rata, the Amanda Staveley shareholding has become more and more diluted, currently down to six percent, with the Reuben family increasing to 14 percent, as they (the Reubens) also put in more cash to cover the Amanda Staveley proportion of the pro rata extra investment.

A bit of a crossroads Newcastle United appear to be at now, certainly where Saudi Arabia PIF are concerned.

Will they (PIF) become 86 percent owners of Newcastle United, or will they stay at 80 and the Reuben family increase to 20 percent? There also of course is the possibility of the two other shareholders each taking a proportion of the Amanda Staveley shareholding, but that would be a little bit bizarre, in my opinion.

I think we are set for a strong message here.

Will the Saudi Arabia PIF just go ahead and increase their share to 86 percent, basically shedding any kind of claim that this is some kind of joint venture.

Or will the Saudis stay at 80 percent and go along with a plan, or at least the appearance of one, that Newcastle United is a project of theirs with the Reubens as junior/minority partners?

I don’t think it will be accidental the message this gives out. It will have been carefully considered and what happens, will for sure, be what they want Newcastle United fans and neutrals to see it as.

I reckon that the Saudi Arabia PIF increasing to 86 percent would just be a significant step towards then the eventual far bigger one of at some point, maybe not very distant, of declaring full 100 percent ownership of Newcastle United.